


telumendil.

by immerfurSH



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Hades and Persephone Mythology Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Baekhyun is Persephone, Chanyeol is Dionysus, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Romance, Sehun is Hades but more like the hopeless romantic version, Sehun the God of the Dead understands romance, pomegranate seeds contained in the kisses, who knows hades has a heart?, who knows persephone has a hidden dark side?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-07 21:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17373491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immerfurSH/pseuds/immerfurSH
Summary: 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐥 — 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘺𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵:𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙨.*“how wonderful; how strange.to be loved by something that hates all else.”





	1. luminous heaven, cruel divinity

 

❖

 

the ambrosial aroma of pomegranates’ purity mixed with shimmers of smooth golden sunlight lingers closely to his nose like a gentle wake up call. he rolls his body a little to another side on the mattress, pulls the blanket over his head, curls into it with hope to fall back into sleep again.

 

the glimmering yellow light of the dawn is not strong enough to pull baekhyun out of sleepiness. cushion and pillow feels soft against his skin, baekhyun thinks he can sink into that comfortable softness as much as he wants. but then, suddenly he hears the harp playing an everlasting melodies, so magically the way it starts exactly every time he wakes up from his sleep. here at this strange place. bitterly, baekhyun wakes up this time, only to realize once again, he is not laying on that familiar meadow underneath the starry night, wishing upon the stars for a rather daring love until he finally falls asleep.

 

not like that, it has not been like that for seven days.

 

 

*

 

 

“everything is so dreadfully tedious.” sehun says, slowly sipping his red cherry wine.

 

“oh c’mon! what’s got into you this time?” chanyeol immediately bursts out laughing.

 

“this is not laughing matter.” sehun says dismissively.

 

“why? aren’t you joking? no, don’t answer. you must definitely be joking.” chanyeol tries hard to stop laughing, “you are the god of the dead. your kingdom is wealthy beyond measure, and it’s prospering everyday, how can you possibly be bored?”

 

“gemstones and pretty materials might buy mediocre delights for mortal. but i am not mortal.” the red ruby shade reflects on sehun’s sharp cheekbones as he slightly tilts the glass of finest wine only for the gods.

 

“so you want some entertainment? i don’t mind visiting your kingdom every time we throw a party on mount olympus. after all, you are still the most generous sponsor to my wine-making business.”

 

“only because your wine is at least acceptable, others’ are below average. poorly tasteless.”

 

“wow, thank you for such cruelly straightforward remark.” chanyeol is supposed to feel like being attacked, but he already known how heartless sehun is. “if you even care just a bit, i’m telling you, your current situation is fairly the same.”

 

sehun shoots back a deathly glare at chanyeol. “ _mind your words_.”

 

chanyeol shrugs and responses with a roguish grin, “it’s your word against yours, your grace.”  then continues, “lucky for you, i am a god with a very kind heart. if loneliness alarms you…”

 

“boredom. _not_ loneliness. i am simply bored, not lonely. and even so, _loneliness does not alarm me_.” sehun fixes with sedate manner, “do not distort my words.”

 

“does not?” chanyeol raises an eyebrow, “how would you know?”

 

the sudden question from chanyeol keeps sehun’s mouth quiet for seconds. it has been a very long time since the last chanyeol could do this kind of thing to sehun. saying something out of the tones and leaving sehun with nothing to say in return. taste of small yet rare victory in word fights always comes as great deal to chanyeol.

 

“please, no hard feelings.” short silence flashes, chanyeol pours another glass of wine for sehun, “i’m sending you a treat, your grace. perhaps a living guest would cure your _in-denial-feeling-of-loneliness?_ ”

 

“how very attentive for the drunkard who always got lost and be found in the middle of ecstasy. but who, exactly…” sehun says dryly, “would want to stay in the underworld?”

 

he should have known better than to pose such a question to chanyeol.

 

but what sehun would never have thought about, how unexpectedly that, only a few days after, he has found the answer.

 

 

*

 

 

the poetically inverse in the nine muses’ songs about him and baekhyun never fails to make sehun feel bitterly amusing.

 

_the one walks with luminous heaven in his steps. while the other raises hell with the cruel divinity in his eyes._

 

 _baekhyun_ — the godchild of life, they said. a bright young soul. flowers bloom underneath his feet wherever he walks, the winds whisper his name, springtime dewdrops light as his heartbeats, river of honeyed gold flows in his veins. the dulcet tones of baekhyun’s  mindless hummings can sing the nymphs to sleep.

 

they also put an ease to sehun’s mind.

 

sehun knows so well, because he has heard.

 

myriad of times, since he ever laid his eyes on the other, followed after baekhyun in form of an unseen shadow, guided by baekhyun’s otherworldly halos, drawn in by baekhyun’s soft warm smiles. sehun thinks he catches a glimpse of empyrean every time he sees baekhyun as he laying down on the infinite varicolored meadow of heaven, bathing under the burning sun of helios.

 

all the wondrous beautiful things belong to baekhyun provokes sehun to sin.

 

 

in fact, he really did.

 

 

sinful and evil. against heaven’s will.

 

 

but sehun is not heaven to judge.

 

 

_for baekhyun, sehun could handle his sins._

 

 

 

 

_(tbc.)_


	2. what dead lovers said about the kisses

 

☾

 

_“where am i?_

 

_“what is this place?”_

 

_“who are you?”_

 

somehow, baekhyun remembers asking those questions when he first woke up in this mysterious place with a calm attitude, quite untypical for anyone who was taken to the underworld unwillingly.

 

“so it’s true then? what those hunting maidens of artemis praise about you — _fearless baekhyun_? i presume.”

 

from the voice, baekhyun realized the stranger was very close to him, but he couldn’t figure out whose voice was that. perhaps the stranger was playing with his vision by using power to create a veil of darkness, completely disabled baekhyun’s sight. as he could not see anything, other senses were all magnified, that was why the stranger’s husky voice tone sounded so alluring to baekhyun’s hearing. it would be a terrible lie to say that the voice did not make him feel a bit light-headed inside.

 

“it’s true. i am not scared of you. now give me my vision back, and answer the questions.” baekhyun said resolutely.

 

“fearless, how true of you.” the stranger hummed out loud, “it’s not common for others to wish to see my face. to them, at some point, seeing me and receiving a death sentence is fairly the same thing.”

 

_“if you saw me, you would fear me.”_

 

baekhyun hissed, “i say i am not scared of you. stop fooling around.”

 

the stranger did not spare baekhyun a chance to prepare himself for the instantaneous physical contact. so suddenly, baekhyun felt a hand lightly placed on his two eyes, stayed still for a second or two then left. if only the softness from the touch didn’t come and go so fast, a bit of him wanted it to last little longer.

 

“you can open your eyes now.”

 

baekhyun did what the stranger said. he slowly opened his eyes. and that was the moment when he saw the stranger for the very first time in forever.

 

 

baekhyun knew the name.

 

 

 _sehun_ — god of the dead, darkness, mortality and afterlife. the high king of the underworld.

 

baekhyun always loves to read. surprising as it may seem, but baekhyun has learned by heart all things written about sehun. quietly burning with a quaint curiosity inside for the ruler of the dead long more than he could recall.

 

sehun is often portrayed as one of the most powerful gods, pitiless in heart; he reigns on a ferrous throne of obsidian bone, awaits the river styx to flow in another dead soul. depicted as cold and rigorous, sehun dwells the underworld with nothing but just, giving all his subjects equal treatments in regards to his laws, feeds the mind pomegranate and pride.

 

all souls, above as well as below, hold the believe that sehun is the god without a heart.

 

sehun, in other words, was the tall dark evil villain of all warnings prepared baekhyun for.

 

“are you comparing my true self with my image built inside those epic poems that those mortal bards often recite?” only when sehun raised his voice to speak, did baekhyun realize he was caught up in his own thoughts for so long.

 

“i have never been concurred with what they wrote. under the order of apollo, i reckon, the nine muses always use too many tragic and crestfallen things to talk about me.  that unashamed apollo even dared to say i am his favorite. a big disgrace, more or less.” sehun said indifferently, but from the way his expressions varied, baekhyun could imagine apollo would hide away until he could gain his kudos back.

 

“quite sensible. we just prefer to only write about the fallen. who, in this land of gods and legends, likes happy endings anyway?” baekhyun argued.

 

the curve of sehun’s mouth drew a half smile, “we are not at the ending, _yet_.”

 

then he continued, “but what a beautiful mind you have,” these words sounded like a praise to baekhyun, especially when it came with a quiet chuckle in response from sehun, “consulting a second opinion would be worth it. tell me your judgement of me. i sometimes have trouble trusting my self-conscious.”

 

“should i feel honored?”

 

“well, you should. i have seen a lot, but none of them was equal to yours.” sehun indicated.

 

baekhyun actually did feel flattered, there was no reason for him to lie. the truth about sehun having a heart or not was uncertain, but one thing baekhyun knew for sure was that sehun—this ruler of the dead, was extremely good with words. or should have been, remarkably eloquent. this was rather against the fact that sehun was the one who rarely left the underworld, and cared little about what happened in the upperworld, as his primary attention was ensuring none of his subjects ever left.

 

something could be determined as _captivation_ in the way sehun spoke truly made baekhyun feel like he was drawn into the urge to give answers to every sehun’s sayings.

 

and _almost_ distracted baekhyun from his current situation.

 

 

 _almost_.

 

 

baekhyun shook his head, as soon as he had made up his mind, saying things like, “there would be no judgement until you answer the rest of my questions.”

 

sehun wondered, “i thought my intention is observable enough.”

 

“but does not mean that it’s fathomable,” baekhyun frowned.

 

“my apology. i really should have said it earlier. can’t explain why it is so easy to get distracted when you are nearby. but, before that...” sehun paused, “do you want some?”

 

baekhyun’s eyes wide opened as he gazed down at sehun’s hand. in the middle of the other’s palm, there was a round fruit having a mass of carmine juicy seeds wrapped up in tough brownish-red rind, just magically appeared in less than one second.

 

of course, baekhyun knew this kind of fruit, and the story told behind it.

 

“i guess you must be hungry, or thirsty at least.”

 

“don’t make a fool out of me. eating this one, or anything of the underworld will make one belongs to it forever.” 

 

sehun could not help but smiling.

 

 _“willingly_. it can only be true if one chooses to eat willingly. as a wise ruler, my kingdom knows nothing but justice and balance.”

 

with another snap of sehun’s fingers, the fruit instantly turned into a hyaline wineglass of red liquid rippling inside.

 

“are you sure you don’t want to try?” sehun passed the drink to baekhyun, expressed a gesture of inviting,  “i can assure you, it’s no harm.”

 

baekhyun looked at the shiny glass for a few seconds, then looked at sehun a little longer.

 

next, he took the glass from sehun’s hand, slowly bringing it closer to his mouth, as if he was going to drink it right away.

 

as if, but _no_.

 

that was all.

 

counting himself from one to three, all of a sudden, baekhyun splashed to entire glass of wine onto sehun’s unawared bare face, ingrained all the other’s features with brilliant red color.

 

“look at all the wine you have wasted.”

 

the crack in sehun’s voice broke their moment of silence.

 

“pity. the pomegranates here are the best in any realm.” sehun stuck his tongue out, licked the corner of his lips lazely, attempted a sardonic smile towards baekhyun.

 

it was hard for baekhyun not to feel getting agitated inside. his intuition was telling him that something rather bad was about to happen. because of the look that went beyond words from sehun’s glistening dark eyes.

 

but the fearlessness given to baekhyun, however, was enough to keep him undaunted.

 

“what is this place? why i am here?”

 

even though his rather shaking voice did nothing more than betraying his mind.

 

“is this your archetypal tendency to ask about things you’ve already known?” sehun questioned. but gave baekhyun no time to answer.

 

 

“this is my place. here the gods died, here the horsemen tremble, where heroes become legends.”  

 

 

“...and you are here, because _i want you to_ _be_.” sehun said mildly.

 

 

“want me to be?” baekhyun responsed promptly and received another glance implied _‘you are asking obvious question again’_   from sehun.

 

 

the god of the dead grimaced, “when i say ‘ _want you to be_ ’, i am being _indelicate._ ”

 

 

“ _i want you_. here, with me.”

 

 

the words changed.

 

 

“sounds more like a _romantic poem_.” because it should have been that way, like sehun ever wanted.

 

 

“sounds more like a _dangerous sin_.” baekhyun gainsaid sehun  with distrust.

 

 

“then ours would have made a tragic love poem, don’t you think?” sehun proposed.

 

 

“why would i want to stay here with you?” this question was for both of them: baekhyun himself, and sehun.  

 

 

“i don’t know. do you want me to convince you?”

 

 

“i don’t belong to you, or to the underworld.”

 

 

“precisely speaking, you neither belong to anyone or anything. which means, there’s still hope.”

 

 

“hope?” baekhyun smiled contemptuously in return, “in this dungeon of great despair? i don’t think so.”

 

 

“perhaps you quite don’t understand enough how badly i want you here.”

 

 

suddenly, sehun’s face was colored melancholy, even the light in his eyes, as baekhyun noticed, was flickering with sorrow. and somehow, baekhyun couldn’t find any amount of braveness inside to defy sehun anymore.

 

it’d sadden sehun, and baekhyun hated himself for not wanting that to happen.

  
  
“at least you should give me a chance. it’s not so distressing here, you know.” sehun finally spoke again, after a short quietude.

 

  
“a chance for what?” baekhyun asked, still quietly wondering why there was almost-sadness in sehun’s eyes.

 

  
  
“ _a chance to explain_ ,”

 

 

sehun stopped talking, out of the blue.

 

and smiled.

 

he smiled the way devil might have smiled, moments before he fell from heaven.

 

baekhyun should have known sooner.

 

the ruler of the underworld. _cunning and deceitful._ baekhyun should have not erase those words out of his head, even for a while.

 

 

“ _how_ _terribly much i crave you_ ,”

 

 

baekhyun felt dizzy with something _unbearable—_

 

 

_“since the moment i first saw you.”_

 

not until baekhyun could merely win his scattered consciousness back, did he realize he was opposite a pair of dark eyes, sehun’s eyes, with two different colors.

 

bloodshed crimson, like the raging hell fire.

 

deepest indigo, like the abyss of tartarus.

 

baekhyun understood now, why others were horrified by the divinity he held within. to see sehun is to see their lives has reached the end, to see sehun is to quiver in front of his beauty.

 

sehun was the young god of genuine beauty. the most swoony type of them all. he the one who had a look of dark splendour, majestic and charming and terrible.

 

sehun caught baekhyun to him and held him close, this moment right now was exactly the same as the moment once was, when baekhyun being borne away from the radiance of heaven springtime to the realm of the dead by the king who rules it.

 

“what is that look in your eyes? are you afraid of my darkness?” sehun asked with the mischief in his stare.

 

baekhyun pursed his lips, decided to look away from those captivating eyes. he felt scared, if he had looked at them a little longer, they would captured his soul without doubt.

 

“don’t be scared.” sehun reassured, using his fingers to turn baekhyun’s head back, so their sight would match each other. the distance between them was too pathetic to be delimited as _‘distance’_.

 

“i am trying to convince you, remember?”

 

“convince… me?”

 

 

 _why was i tremble_ , baekhyun confronted himself. sehun was absolutely right. he needed to stop asking such pointless questions.

 

 

“how?”

 

 

there, this question was much better.

 

 

here and now, with sehun’s heterochromia eyes extremely close, he anchored baekhyun by a stare, so hard that baekhyun felt the pulsation of his heart accelerating irrepressibly.

 

then, for a split second, when sehun pulled baekhyun a little too much, their chests finally collided.

 

and baekhyun couldn’t figure out whose heart was beating incredibly loud. it could be sehun’s. but the god of the dead had always been reckoned as the heartless one. therefore, those heartbeats must belonged to baekhyun.

 

“you know, i have heard a great deal of the kisses from all the dead lovers…” sehun whispered next to baekhyun’s ears, “like how the kisses would bind their souls together, similar to the thread of fate, well… more romantically involved; mend broken hearts, cure the curses, change the world,... or sort of. most of the times, i chose not to believe.”

 

sehun trailed fingers alongside baekhyun’s face, as if he was casting a magic spell, which made baekhyun unable to move.

 

“only this time…” the cold fingers stopped in their tracks, then swiftly gripped baekhyun’s dainty jawbones. “i want to know for sure whether or not it’s powerful enough…”

 

sehun smiled, again.

 

 

every time sehun smiled, the air was stolen from baekhyun’s lungs little by little.

 

his eyes were blazing with devilment sparks. baekhyun could felt it burning his skin.

 

 _maybe sehun would kiss him_ , baekhyun thought.

 

or _maybe sehun would eat him alive_.

 

he had not decided yet. because this was a difficult question.

 

 

 _“to make you understand how bad i desire you.”_ sehun’s voice sounded so soft, like he was singing a moonlight serenade only for baekhyun to listen.

 

 

and all that was left to say.

 

 

in the end, the final answer was a kiss.

 

 

out of the blue, completely no foreshadow, without any warning.

 

placing a hand behind the neck, sehun captured baekhyun by the throat, pressing his lips against baekhyun’s as much as possible. the other hand slowly tracing down baekhyun’s back, clutching to it in any way sehun could. the enamored kiss of sehun was swallowing the air out of baekhyun’s lungs, knocked out his every sense. sehun was kissing baekhyun so deep that he forgot whose air he was breathing.

 

what a conscious baekhyun would know, all of this was completely wrong. so wrong the way it should had been. sehun to him, should had been a dangerous sin that he never should be involved. it should had made baekhyun’s mind scream with distrust.

 

but what an unconscious baekhyun would know, all at once, real as first dawn and twice as truthful as the oracles of gods , somehow in the way sehun kissing him, falsified his own mind, made his heart pound unexpectedly with bewilderment.

 

and when baekhyun was trapped under sehun’s moonlight sculptured body with no chance to repulse, unsteady head placed on sehun’s bare arm, he felt nothing but the soft touches of sehun’s lips to his lips, tasted nothing but the delightful sweetness of pomegranate seeds overflowed inside his mouth every time sehun’s tongue twisted deeper and deeper to fulfill the evil plan for domination.

 

and he heard nothing but the euphonious whisperings came from sehun’s mouth, breathing out only a name, as if that name was the only reason for existence of the god.

 

 

_baekhyun._

 

 

_baekhyun._

 

 

_baekhyun._

 

 

_baekhyun._

 

 

_baekhyun._

 

 

until it became the only sound left in this world.

 

 or _every world_.

 

 

after the relentless kisses, just when baekhyun thought he’d die from a heart failure created by sehun’s cruel, yet more affectionate doings, the other decided to cease, just exhaling blazing air into baekhyun’s mouth.

 

sehun was never the one who ran out of air, it was baekhyun. he did not want to inhale sehun in, but he was breathless and taking the air from sehun was the only choice he had.

 

sehun couldn’t help but laughing, because the way baekhyun’s breath coming in gasps while his chest was raising up and down uncontrollably, was pretty much one of the most adorable things ever.

 

and it was also a sign.

 

“i can see that you are convinced. am i right?”

 

baekhyun disquieted, he knew he could not run away from the unassailable truth.

 

“what have you... just done to me?” baekhyun sounded so weak, as much insecured as he was feeling at the moment.

 

“explaining, convincing, kissing…” sehun said it the way it would pacify baekhyun at least. “or you think everything was not enough?”

 

baekhyun bite his lower lip, fixed eyes on the other’s face.

 

 

sehun looked like heaven, and baekhyun felt like hell.

 

 

sometimes, baekhyun hated his guts so much.

 

 

“very well then…” with a caress far more gentle than anything else, sehun touched baekhyun’s dark red bruised lips [the victim of sehun’s own doings] with his fingers, talking in seductive undertone, “shall we listen to the judgement of you, about me?”

 

 

_unbearable divinity._

 

 

_heartbroken cruelty._

 

 

_intolerable tenderness._

 

 

all of these thoughts wandered at every depth of baekhyun’s mind. he knew he should said something in return.

 

 

but he also knew better that this was a battle of hearts.

 

 

onwards and always.

 

 

and he remembered what sehun said to him about them—

 

 

_we are not at the ending, yet._

 

 

perhaps sehun was ready for his judgement.

 

but baekhyun was not sure if he was ready for his own.

 

 

 

_(tbc.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i. finally updated the second chapter, yayyyy me~ it's a little longer, but i am not sure whether it's good enough or not. it all yours to judge heheheheh~~
> 
> ii. thanks you for all the love and feedbacks you have given this fic so farrrr♡ it really means a lot to me.
> 
> iii. if you guys have any difficulty in understanding any names in greek mythology, just google it, or ask me ^^
> 
> iv. anyone wondering about what would happen in the next chapter? anyone wants to make a guess? 
> 
> v. sehun sounds so muuuch like a love poet right guys???

**Author's Note:**

> i. this is my first hunbaek fic ever written. i have always been a trash for hunbaek since the very beginning, and seriously, the amount of stories we are being blessed with could never do hunbaek justice. writing for hunbaek is my genuine pleasure & indulgence ❀◕ ‿ ◕❀
> 
> ii. greek mythology!AU is PURE GOLD that's all. 
> 
> iii. special thanks to steph♡ (@zyximb) for encouraging me to the point that i could be brave enough to publish my first work here, to all sebaek/hunbaek enthusiasts. this is because of you, and also, for you - steph♡ 
> 
> iv. if you love the story or have anything in mind while/after reading, please let me now. i would be dead happy with your feedbacks ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄
> 
> v. i sincerely hope you all could enjoy the story!
> 
> vi. i know it's late. but hey, happy 7 years with Sehun♡!


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